Follow me on Twitter @tc24a

License

Tag: India

I have had many challenges in my time in India, culturally, emotionally, physically and health wise, they have dramatically changed me, to in my view, prepare me for what is to come.

More than anything they have changed how I look at large groups of people, the herd of humanity so to speak, it enabled me to change, to assume nothing, to project nothing, when we can do this we can push through the surface and to see them for who they are as individuals. People in India are little different to us, except in that they are a product of their culture, their community, their environment and beliefs, and this can manifest in many ways, one maybe an emotional repression, but remember they all want what we want at the end of the day … their life like ours is a reflection of the personality, for most of humanity this is the ego mind which creates our life individually and on a wider view, collectively for all of us.

This experience came as I hobbled across the road yesterday in Dehradun. A young man, without legs … sitting on a kind of board with wheels came up to me … it truly breaks your heart, but a big smile on his face changes the impact, changes everything – it hit me as it always does, that it is truly in our attitudes where we create our lives.

In the West we may have some expectations of life, he had none, there is no safety net for him here, no social programs … but he was smiling .. a lesson and inspiration for all of us.

It reinforced in me a way to live .. from humble gratitude, staying present, accept, flow and help who you can, how you can, when you can.

This is an impression from a Western perspective and so may not give a fair or accurate observation of Poverty here in India, so much here confronts me. I am sure my impression of the physical world here will change as I become familiar, also as my Kundalini rises over time.

Poverty and homelessness is everywhere, in the West it is a cost of Capitalism, of being unemployed and also underemployed, where at any time, one may be one pay check away from it, it comes primarily from Corporate greed, exacerbated by the “Free Trade” agreements which are not at all about free trade but where Governments provide a means for Corporations to move jobs off shore, to other sovereign jurisdictions, that have very low wages and low protection for employees, in the areas of wages, benefits and heath. This desertion of their home country leaves many tens of thousands or millions of people who had jobs, now without any means to live. Here the situation is very complex including the immensity of the population, the lack of education, politics and something that is found in all political systems, corruption.

In India, there is no safety net or any kind, social programs that one experiences, even at the low rate that is in Australia just don’t exist … the quantity in need here is vast, on a cursory examination, there seems no National Government support for the homeless, the poor, the destitute – via food kitchens, shelters, beds or the like. I don’t know as yet the extent of private provision of the same from overseas organisations, I am sure I will given time …

You cannot walk down the street here without seeing the poor, rapier thin bodies begging, one does what one can, it is the mothers and children that my heart goes out to … the mothers ( malnourished ) who are going without so their children will have food … one gives, but then what? Does it only delay an inevitability … but nevertheless we give, but what comes next for them? We cannot know this, all we can do is help in this moment and then move on. The quantity is vast, there are sadly many who may not be in poverty, they are in a business to again make money off the tourists – one can only guess and hope that the deserving get something, so for me I give to the very old, and mothers with children.

To give you an idea, I was walking along the road, when I first arrived and not far from where I am staying, right in front of me in the gutter, was a body of a young man, thin beyond comprehension … he was just lying there, not moving, I could not see him breathing, was he alive or dead, to this day I don’t know.